For many, Scrabble(R) is merely a board game, for others it is an intellectual pilgrimage. In Word Freak Stefan Fatsis charts the history and theory of the game alongside his own rise from living-room player to competitive shark, and affords us a glimpse into the extraordinary world of the brilliant geeks and misfit savants who populate the highest ranks of the game. In an effort to understand the depth of obsession plumbed by the players, Fatsis meets experts in memory, language and mathematics as well as those players who form Scrabble's darker underworld. Witty and profound, Word Freak is about sports and competition, the human mind and its interior workings, drive, desire and loneliness. And huge lists of words with no meaning at all.

Reviews

'Within two pages I was hooked. This is an enthralling and wonderfully written elegy' Daily Telegraph; 'A quirky account of a most peculiar practice' Glasgow Herald; 'An amiable memoir of self-inflicted obsession' Times Literary Supplement